


Vanish

by ZenyZootSuit



Category: Kingdom Netflix, 킹덤 | Kingdom (TV 2019)
Genre: Accidental Death, Angst, Dark, Hurt No Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, I'm Sorry, I'm stunned one of these hasn't been written yet, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kingdom Weekly, M/M, Sad Ending, Seo-bi's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit
Summary: It was getting so late...and the prince still wasn't back yet.
Relationships: Prince Lee Chang/Yeong-shin, Seo-bi & Yeong-shin (Kingdom)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	Vanish

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kinglomweekly's angst prompt. This prompt was gifted to me by voidpants (and it was indeed a conversation with them that inspired this) and given my angst writing history and such a generous gift, would you have expected anything less? 
> 
> That said...I'm so sorry. Y'all are gonna hate me.
> 
> Do mind the tags, this is by far the darkest thing I have ever written.

********

“I’m going after him.”

Beom-pal squeaked in fear. “B-b-but it’s almost dark out!”

Yeong-shin glowered at the man. “I don’t care. I’m going out to find him.”

The hunter had just picked up his rifle and secured it over his shoulder when the first monsters howled outside the gates of the town. He made to go anyway, but Seo-bi caught him by the arm.

“He’ll have sought shelter. He knows what to do,” she soothed the hunter, feeling the tense, trembling muscles under the fabric of his shirt. “You taught him well.”

Yeong-shin shivered, staring at the door, expression pained.

And fearful.

Seo-bi stood with him as he watched over the walls that night, searching for any sign of the returning prince. The moon rose high in the sky, and the prince was not back yet.

The summer sun peaked over the horizon and the monsters fled its rays. The second they did, Yeong-shin was on a horse and galloping out over the hills in search of the prince. Others soon followed. Seo-bi stayed in the town, in case he returned.

The others returned by late afternoon. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the mountains when Yeong-shin returned as well, empty handed.

“I can’t find him,” he panted, clear panic in his eyes. “Seo-bi, I can’t find him!”

The physician stared up at the hunter, beginning to feel something like panic herself.

The sun sank fully behind the mountains and the prince was not back yet.

Again, Yeong-shin did not sleep, and neither did Seo-bi. She stayed up beside him through the night, trying to reason with him that he needed to rest his body, his mind, and most importantly his eyes.

“You are the best tracker we have. I know you can find him, but not if you are exhausted.”

He paid her no mind, eyes scanning the surrounding woods as far out as the light from the torches carried, ignoring the monsters screaming below the walls.

It made sense, the physician supposed, why he did not sleep. Perhaps could not sleep. All of his unwavering, undying loyalty to the prince had made so much more sense when she had seen them kiss by the river a few months prior. A quick press of the lips and nothing more when they thought no one was watching, but such a simple gesture betrayed a much deeper level of intimacy between the two than anything grander could.

Some would say it was unlawful. Seo-bi would say they had more important things to worry about, like the threat of starvation or that of the monsters, than if it was a man or a woman who made Yeong-shin smile for once or made the prince’s eyes shine like stars.

Yeong-shin did not smile now as he leapt on his horse with the first rays of sunlight and bolted from the town with a renewed sense of urgency.

He returned the same as he left late in the evening, eyes shining with unshed tears of worry.

Yeong-shin watched the trees again that night. Seo-bi watched the faces of the dead, praying she would not recognize a face amongst them.

It had been two days, and the prince was still not back yet.

The third day came and went, and the prince appeared to have vanished without a trace, along with the other men he had gone scouting with for the resurrection plant.

“I should have gone with him,” Yeong-shin whispered, trembling with exhaustion as Seo-bi tried to coax a bit of broth into him. “I should have gone with him, Seo-bi, why didn’t I go with him?”

For much the same reason she hadn’t. They were needed elsewhere. The prince had said so. She could still picture his face right before he had turned his horse and galloped off over the hills. So sure, so strong…

She wished she had gone with him, too.

She should have known the second the sound of Yeong-shin falling to his knees reached her ears. She turned towards him to find a look of sheer horror and pure agony on his face. She knew what she was going to see before she even turned to look.

It...didn’t look like him. Perhaps that was a blessing. She could still clearly remember his face before he had left three days prior, and it didn’t look like that. Perhaps that meant she would be spared remembering him like this. Because that wasn’t him. At least, not anymore.

The prince had finally made it back…

She called the others because Yeong-shin had no voice. She wasn’t sure how her voice sounded so steady when her heart was racing in her ears.

Beom-pal screamed when he saw him, immediately breaking down into tears. For once, Seo-bi was grateful for his outburst. He was expressing what they were too shocked to. Seo-bi herself still felt like she was in a dream. She kept pinching herself to make sure she was not.

Yeong-shin still hadn’t moved. If not for his wide eyed stare and quick, audible breathing, she might have thought him turned to stone.

Min Chi-rok, ever calm in the face of _disaster_ , moved first, reaching for an arrow, tightening his grip on his bow.

“No.”

Slowly, Seo-bi turned to Yeong-shin. The hunter was staring up at Min, white as a sheet, but certain in his words.

“I’ll do it.” His voice cracked, but his gaze was steady.

Min nodded and replaced the arrow, stepping back respectfully, head bowed.

Yeong-shin reached for his rifle. Seo-bi had never seen him load it so slowly, each move so deliberate, so careful. Somehow his hands did not shake. He never once took his eyes off the one in the crowd.

Seo-bi flinched when he cocked the rifle, never taking her eyes off _him_ as he raised it, but she couldn’t watch him shoot. She shut her eyes, squeaking softly at the bang of the rifle, a sense of finality in its reverberations. Neither did she turn to see if the job was done.

Yeong-shin collapsed where he stood then, crumpling to the ground like he had been shot himself. Seo-bi rushed to him, looking him over quickly to make sure he was okay (how could he be?) She held him in her arms the rest of the night. He never made a sound, never spoke a word, even as her body quaked and she muffled sobs into the top of his head, her tears soaking his hair.

When the dawn came and the yowling of the monsters dissipated, he slowly disentangled himself from her grip and numbly made his way down the stairs of the wall-walk and out through the gates. Only then did Seo-bi manage to look over the wall.

Yeong-shin had made his shot. One body lay on the ground, the bright red blood standing out amongst the dust.

She watched as Yeong-shin approached the body and dropped to his knees beside it. She watched as he lovingly brushed the hair out of their friend’s face, gazing down at him, before hauling the body into his arms. Only then did he _scream_.

No one dared approach him, not even Seo-bi, as his wails echoed off the mountains and his grief soaked the valley. He must have cried for hours, and Seo-bi watched him for just as long. He cried until the sun was high overhead and it had turned into a very nice day (it didn’t even have the decency to rain).

The others came out, as midday turned to afternoon, and pulled the body from Yeong-shin’s arms. He followed them back in like he would always follow the prince while he was alive, never once leaving his side as if to protect him in death like he couldn’t in life.

The town was poor, but they mourned the death of the lord (the Crown Prince was written into history as dead, now he really was) who had come to help them when no one else would and managed to put together a very nice funeral.

Yeong-shin stayed by his side until they buried him under a cherry blossom tree (he had suffered so much in life, the least Seo-bi could do for him in death way give him somewhere beautiful to rest. She had asked Yeong-shin for his input. He hadn’t acted like he’d heard her). The hunter stayed by his side even after they buried him, sitting cross legged by the fresh grave and staring down at it.

Seo-bi herself stared at the grave marker the local stone mason had carved that morning.

_Ahn Chang,_ it read (they hadn’t even been able to bury him under his own name).

“Forgive me, Chang...” she thought she heard the hunter murmur.

The sun sank low in the sky and Yeong-shin would not move, no matter how much she pleaded and pulled, and later begged and hit at him. It took Beom-pal coming out to join her, tearfully begging him not to make them attend another funeral so soon to get him to stand and give up his watch.

No matter how much Seo-bi coaxed, he did not move from his spot on the wall all night, eyes fixed on that grave.

Seo-bi told Min Chi-rok and the others not to let Yeong-shin out of their sight the following day. Min nodded firmly and took his job seriously, but none of them were any match for for the hunter’s skill. By the end of the following day, he too had vanished into thin air.

Seo-bi had been expecting as much. They would never have been able to keep their eyes on him forever. Eventually, he was always going to be able to escape their watch, but she had been hoping for a little more _time_ …

Now she sat alone keeping watch over the wall, scanning the faces of the monsters once more, searching for a familiar one.

She had not expected that he would stay, try as she might to convince him, but at the very least she hoped he would not be so cruel as to show up amongst the living dead.

**El Fin**

**Author's Note:**

> I made myself cry writing this. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Let me know what you think :3


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